Network-enabled applications are applications that use communication networks to share information between various devices, each of which might be operated by the same or different user(s). The network-enabled applications include applications such as browser engines, messaging interfaces, remote desktops, and the like that allow users to easily browse, select, and manipulate items being viewed using a network-enabled application. The network-enabled application receives one or more communications (such as code for instantiating webpages) from a service provider that is often encoded in the form of a language (such as the hypertext markup language HTML), which contains elements that describe the structure and functionality of the content that is received by the content user.
The networked-enabled application are often used to access blogs (“web logs”) and websites that accept user comments, which provide a forum for users (and the blog host) to provide comments on a posting by a blog and/or website host, for example. Thus, the blog (which term, as used herein, includes the meaning of websites, HTML markup forums, wikis, “blikis” (blog-wikis), and the like that accept user comments) provides a collective forum in which to conduct a multi-party discussion about a blog posting (including the original blog posting by the blog host) as well as the attendant comments that are posted by interested parties having access to the blog. Often, the discussion is centered on (or around) a topic of mutual interest to the participants who post to the blog.
However, certain third parties, who gain access to a blog (through overt or covert means), attempt to use postings to a blog to further the interests of the poster, as compared with participating in and serving the collective interests of the blog audience as a whole. Such adverse posts are variously described as “high jacking threads,” “posting ‘spam’” (where voluminous postings to various blogs are made with the hope that at least some of it will “stick”), “posting (age-) inappropriate content,” and the like. Thus, one abuser of the blog commenting facility is capable of consuming a relatively large portion time of multiple blog users while only expending a relatively very little amount of personal time. The problem is compounded when multiple such-abusers post adverse posts to a same blog (or multiple different blogs).
The incidence of the adverse posts can be so high that valid users of the blog are deterred from participating in the blog, which is often detrimental to the purpose for which the blog was established. Also, a high incidence of the adverse posts to a particular blog can cause the blog to be ranked poorly in by typically used search engines. Attempts by administrators to block out adverse posters such as “web-bots” (or “bots”) often entail extra burdens upon users and administrators alike who, in an attempt reduce automated adverse postings, use challenge-response tests such as the CAPTCHA (Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart) test.
Blog moderators often attempt to “clean up” and remove adverse posts (and/or undesired contents of the adverse posts). However, the greater the popularity of a blog, the greater the likelihood of attracting such adverse posts, and the difficulty of moderating such posts also increasingly compounds.